Volunteer tourism has been regarded to provide an authentic and mutually beneficial relationship between volunteer tourists and residents based on volunteering. By exploring volunteer tourists' emotional solidarity with residents, the researcher aims to uncover the social relations between volunteer tourists and residents in practice. This exploratory study was conducted in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica during November 2012 to January 2013. Based on the two months of ethnographic field research, this research suggests that volunteer tourism may not be superior to so-called “mass tourism” in terms of building harmonious relationships between volunteer tourists and resident. In this study, volunteer tourists’ feelings of closeness were merely feelings which boosted the identity of volunteer tourists from “tourists” to “volunteers”. This article contributes to the growing body of literature on volunteer tourism by exploring the volunteer tourism experience from the perspectives of international volunteers.

This qualitative study looks at host-guest interaction facilitated by the phenomenon of tourism social entrepreneurship through the lens of emotional solidarity. Social entrepreneurship is arguably the social innovation that tourism needs and has become an alternative strategy to develop tourism in host communities with the potential to create positive community change. However, the literature on combining sharing  economy, social or community entrepreneurship and emotional solidarity is scarce. Therefore, this study analyses host-guest interactions facilitated through the socialstart-up socialbnb. Findings from this study indicate that there are at least two crucial criteria forsustainable tourism development and positive community change. First, social entrepreneurship should create and facilitate tourism structures and networks, which avoid the negative impacts of tourism to the residents and instead create social,ecological, and economic benefits for the local community. Perhaps, focusing on theneeds of the local community and creating beneficial host-guest relationships is themost effective way to promote tourism development that is supported by residents.Thus, social entrepreneurship should not only act as a facilitator between guests and the local community but also consider the residents’ attitudes towards tourism development and the actual economic need for tourism in the destination, especially in the Global South.